Syrian troops continue to fire on protesters despite a visit by Arab League monitors to assess the Assad regime’s compliance with a plan to resolve the country’s political crisis. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the nine-month-long uprising. We’re joined from Damascus by Bassel, a Syrian activist and filmmaker just back from the city of Homs, where three dozen people were reportedly killed the day before monitors...

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian revolutionary activist and blogger, has been released from prison after nearly two months behind bars. Fattah was ordered jailed by a military court on October 30 and summoned to face charges that included inciting violence—a charge he firmly denies. He refused to cooperate, rejecting the legitimacy of the military court who wanted to try him as a civilian. We speak to Fattah about the Egyptian...

The New York Times reported Monday the Obama administration has decided in principle to allow embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to enter the United States to receive "legitimate medical treatment." If the report is true, the United States will have agreed to Saleh’s arrival hours after his forces killed nine people demanding he be tried for deaths of protesters over the past year. Over the last several months,...

A new wave of violence in Cairo’s Tahrir Square began Friday when one of several hundred peaceful protesters staging a sit-in outside the parliament building was reportedly detained and beaten by troops. Up to 14 people have now been killed and hundreds injured over the last three days of clashes. A video uploaded Sunday on YouTube has circulated widely and provoked outrage at the extent of police brutality. It shows a young woman being...

Ten months after the fall of Mubarak, the residents of Suez are now preparing to head to the polls on December 14, to cast their votes in the second round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections. Read Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous’s report for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was presented this weekend to three women: Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Yemeni peace activist and journalist, Tawakkul Karman, the first Arab woman to win the prize, as well as its youngest winner to date. We featured highlights from their acceptance addresses this week. Today we play a final excerpt from Karman, the mother of three who has led rallies in the protests...

Early results from Egypt’s first post-revolutionary elections indicate the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party will emerge as the biggest winner. We speak with Democracy Now! special correspondent Anjali Kamat, who has just returned to the United States after reporting in Cairo since the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak. Anjali describes how Egypt’s elections take place against the backdrop of economic...

Egypt is in the second day of its first elections since the ouster of longtime president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. On Monday, Egyptians waited in long lines across the country to choose their first-ever democratically elected parliament. The elections are being held in the wake of fierce clashes between protesters and police last week that left at least 42 people dead and more than 3,100 wounded. We play a video report filed by...

Bahrain has announced a commission to steer reforms after an inquiry found systematic rights abuse during a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests this year, but opposition parties say they will not participate in the commission. Published last week, the 500-page report outlines various abuses committed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s government. According to the commission, nearly 3,000 people were detained during the...